Politician Who Predicted Financial Crash Says Brexit Can Be Stopped

Now the veteran politician is seeking to take over the political center ground once held by former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair and ex-Conservative premier David Cameron. His mission? Breathe life into a movement to reverse Brexit and convince voters it’s not too late to change one’s mind.

According to Bloomberg, the former business secretary, 74, is the sole candidate to lead the Liberal Democrats, the traditional third party of British national politics and the most pro-European. If no one else throws their hat in by 4 p.m. London time on Thursday, Cable will succeed Tim Farron, who was dogged by questions on whether his Christian faith was compatible with a socially progressive platform.

That would not be a problem for Cable, who moonlights as a novelist, and recently confided to BBC Radio that his second thriller contains “discreet” sex scenes. Far from being daunted by the challenge of restoring the fortunes of a party that in 2015 lost all but eight of its 57 seats in the House of Commons before clawing some back last month, Cable spies an opportunity.

"The immediate issues are to march into the vast territory in the middle of the political spectrum that is currently not occupied because, the government is dominated by anti-EU zealots and the Labour Party is dominated by anti-capitalist zealots,” Cable said in an interview. “There is an enormous political territory waiting to be captured."

Mr. Second Referendum

The Liberal Democrats, who opposed Brexit in last year’s referendum, are pushing for the government to hold a second referendum once the details of Britain’s Brexit deal with the EU have been brokered and the shape of the future relationship with the bloc is known. The political chaos enveloping the U.K. is a chance to rethink the Brexit path undertaken.

“It’s becoming increasingly unlikely that we will have an orderly and moderate Brexit,” Cable said. “It looks increasingly as if either Brexit will never happen, or if it does happen, will be in a highly disorderly and damaging form.”

Cable sat in the cabinet with Prime Minister Theresa May for five years under Cameron’s coalition government, and said he enjoyed “perfectly polite if somewhat distant” relations with her, characterized by “fundamental disagreements” on immigration, the issue that arguably tipped the outcome of the referendum in favor of the Leave camp.

This time, “we’re not looking to prop up the government,” he said, predicting the premier won’t devise an approach to Brexit that wins his party’s support. “I don’t think I need to work with her at the moment because we’re in opposition, albeit constructive opposition.”

Sir Vince

Cable inherits a diminished party with only 12 of 650 lawmakers in the Commons. But even small parties can hold sway in a hung Parliament, as illustrated by May relying on the 10 votes from Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionists to pass her agenda.

Cable’s own political career might have ended in 2015 when the Conservatives overturned his majority of more than 12,000 to take away his Twickenham seat in southwest London.

After turning down a seat in the House of Lords -- but accepting a knighthood that allows him to use the title “Sir” -- Cable took back his seat in June’s election, securing a majority approaching 10,000.

“Given he wasn’t in Parliament two years ago, it’s a turnaround in fortunes,” said Brunel University Politics Professor Justin Fisher in a telephone interview. “He’s a good man to steady the ship and is widely respected in Lib Dem circles and, to an extent, beyond.”

‘Mystic Meg’

While he’s shied away from taking credit for predicting the global financial crisis, he saw the signs mounting within the U.K. economy. As early as November 2003, Cable flagged in Parliament the “brutal truth” that U.K. growth was being sustained by consumer spending “pinned against record levels of personal debt.”

It’s earned him a reputation as an economic soothsayer. In a Bloomberg television interview last week, Cable said he was putting at risk his reputation as “Mystic Meg” -- a reference to a newspaper astrologer -- by saying the likelihood of Brexit not happening is “mounting by the day.”

Cable played an instrumental role in changing his party’s fortunes when the Liberal Democrats were propelled into government for the first time since World War II, earning him the post as business secretary that he held for the entire legislature. During his five years in office, Cable was critical of bankers and the bonus culture in the City of London.

An economics graduate of Cambridge University, Cable was a Labour Party councilor in Scotland in the 1970s. He later defected but had to wait until the late 1990s before winning a seat at the fifth attempt. He left behind a job as chief economist at the oil giant Shell International in his 50s to become a member of Parliament for the first time.

Outside of the chamber, he’s a ballroom dancer who appeared on a Christmas special of the BBC’s “Strictly Come Dancing” show in 2010. “I need something to keep me fit and sane,” he told the BBC.

And at 74, Cable would be the party’s oldest-ever leader but he scoffs at the idea age is a problem. He points to Jeremy Corbyn, the 68-year-old Labour leader, and Donald Trump, 71.

“We’ve already seen people of my generation, whether it’s Corbyn who’s a little bit younger than me, and Trump in America," he said. “It’s what you feel and what you’re capable of, rather than what your birth-date is.”